Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene

Friday, August 1, 2014

Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair - Soft on Terrorism

Let's begin with the definition of "terrorism." Merriam-Webster offers up a fairly standard definition: "the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal."

That sounds exactly like what is going on in Gaza right now. That is exactly what is going on in Gaza right now. It's terrorism. Deliberately planned and precisely executed terrorism. And our prime minister and his government and our opposition Liberal and New Democrat leaders and all their parties are just fine with it. Trudeau even praises the terrorist government for its "commitment to peace." Thanks, Justin, now sit down.

Israel tries to mask its terrorist campaign as "self defence." Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair parrot that line. The Gang of Four - Netanyahu, Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair - maintain that Israel is going after Hamas, not targeting Gaza Palestinians.

They don't want to connect the dots between Israel's attack on Lebanese civilians in 2006 and its working over of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in 2008/2009 and the sequel now underway. Yet they're all the same, all straight from the same IDF playbook. There's even a name for it, the Dahiya Doctrine. It was named after the Beirut suburb that Israel demolished in 2006.

This technique deliberately targets civilians. They are the intended victims - the old and the young, women and children, those least able to get out of the way. The attack on the civilian population begins by taking out their essential services - water plants (check), sewage plants (check), electricity plants (check). Then you go at the civilians directly by bombarding their homes (check), hospitals (check), schools (check), and markets (check). You really work them over and you just keep at it all the while pretending that you're really targeting someone else.

The steady reduction of Gaza is blatant, deliberate terrorism. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s something even worse. Maybe what Netanyahu has in mind this time is enhanced terrorism, 'terrorism plus', - ethnic cleansing. Maybe he wants to render Gaza uninhabitable. Already some 90% of what passes for freshwater (it's actually a mild brine) is unfit for human consumption. The destruction of the sewage system almost guarantees there'll be a cholera epidemic before long. Taking down the power grid is the icing on the cake. It's positively medieval.

If you're a Liberal or a New Democrat, this is on you too. It's your party that is supporting this, absolving Israel of its campaign of terrorism, condoning the reduction of Gaza that will lead, must eventually lead to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population from the Gaza strip.

5 comments:

From the above link: " "the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism."

According to Falk, the three "Harpers" are apparently supporting state terrorism, are they not?

Very well said. All of our mainstream parties support terrorism and, more importantly, are accomplices in the genocide of the Palestinian people. It's disgusting that they are such cowards at the whip of Israel.

Anon 12:22. At law, Israel remains a 'power in occupation' of Gaza by virtue of its siege in which it controlled Gaza's coastal waters, airspace, telecommunications systems and its border land crossings. The pro-Israel side deliberately ignores the fact that Gaza is blockaded on all sides, including from above. This has been instrumental in the Palestinian's humanitarian plight.

As a power in occupation, Israel is bound by more stringent rules concerning the security of the Palestinian civilian population than that prescribed by the laws of war. Israel is obliged not merely to avoid unwarranted injury and death to the Gazans but to actually defend them against attack from anyone - anyone including itself.

Who is this "Falk" to whom you refer. As for your query, I thought this very post and the previous one I did on Dahiyeh specifically address that.

Richard Falk is someone who should know what he is talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Falk

From above: "Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930)[2] is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and has been described as 'a critical analyst of the role of international law in global politics'.[3] He is the author or co-author of 20 books and the editor or co-editor of another 20 volumes,[4] In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967."[5]